Bright Fires Burn Fastest Read online

  He flicked her up with a powerful tug on her arm. She followed him into the bedroom and within moments she was lying on the bed with him on top of her again. Doubt again was parked as Sarah let the great Dicky Denton do as he pleased.

  *

  Lucas let the brush swim over the thick paint he had smashed onto the canvas. Stumbling back to see the image, his seemingly random swirls had created the same face again, it was always that face. Something like his own but twisted.

  Lighting a cigarette and feeling the butt slip against his paint sodden hands he cackled at the memory of what he had caused that night. Smashing his boss up, blowing it with the girl he might have loved and eventually ending up alone again. Years now he had known this and for just as long he had ignored it.

  After tonight Lucas could never go back. He was fired, that was fine. It was the city though, it was London. It stank of self-elevation on unworthy crumbling plinths. It reeked of those bottle necked into the scratch card of life hoping for three in a row.

  The face from the canvas still dripping in red paint stared back. He had made mistakes throughout his life but this one was different. He thought back to Emma and realised she had been the last bastion, without her there was no reason to London.

  Lucas let the paintbrush slide from his hands and his eyes shimmered shut for a second.

  The bottle hit his teeth with a crack as he finished, the cigarette, as ever, came next. But before it got to his caked lips he fell back, the booze had won the battle and pretty soon the war. He lay there with the glowering lights blazing upon the painted red face still looked down upon him sneering.

  The face in the painting twitched slightly from the dripping paint. The mouth became a sneer as a thick droplet curled the lip. As well as everyone else knew, it was useless. He was cursed with self-destruction, a sense that today was a good day to die. Not even in a poetic way but an angry one, a violent spasm before slipping off into the eternal blue of night. Sleep never to be woken from, never stirring or sighing awake again. Lucas would never make old bones, not even close, not at this rate.

  *

  David mindlessly channel hopped. Lucas had promised him dinner but, again, had failed to turn up. Thus David’s black bean beef and quarter duck were still somewhere near his oesophagus and he couldn’t go to sleep just yet.

  ‘If only I could find a real man’ the box blared.

  ‘She’ll have to call you back’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Bond, James Bond.’

  David still felt elation for Bond. If only, he laughed inwardly. Somewhere in what had so far been a vacuous past he remembered being a child and believing anything was possible.

  He looked down at his creased tummy pushing his t-shirt forward. Why had he ordered a Mr Changs? His diet had started so well that very morning. Probiotic yoghurt, starvation by 11.00am but that was the point was it not? Lunch a mere Covent Garden soup and then on the way home he saw Mr Chang with his sweet chilli sauce.

  “Come on David”, he said aloud.

  He trundled to his bathroom in his pokey flat in Balham. In the mirror he saw what everyone else saw, a loser. His spectacles hung down on his nose and his skin reminded him of a bar of soap left in the shower by the previous hotel guest.

  David grabbed at his clothes and tore them off standing there naked under the one bulb still working in the bathroom. From side on it was even more hideous.

  “You fucking disgrace”, David shouted knowing that Mrs Grant next door would hear. He snatched his toothbrush from the Garfield mug and slammed it into his overhung gut. The pain was sharp and intense but not the punishment he needed. Again he raised the appliance and smashed it repeatedly into his fat that wobbled. Tears streamed down his face.

  “Look at yourself you blob. David doughnut that’s fucking you. I haven’t forgotten the names you cunts. You’re all fucking cunts, all of you”.

  Snot began to escape from his nose and his glasses fell to the floor. Blood was beginning to seep down onto his thighs from one of the wounds. It felt hot and sticky and panic began to rise in his throat making him whinny.

  “You deserve it you whale. Feel the pain David doughnut.”

  The pain allowed anger and bitter rage at all that had happened over the last month to fade until his eye caught the cover of the most recent Men’s Health he had bought that very morning for inspiration. On its cover promenaded a brazen Adonis who looked very like the Aussie gorilla that had damaged his pride with the incident of the bus.

  “No”, he screamed again.

  Within seconds he was down on his knees in front of the loo ramming his fingers down his throat. He cuddled the bowl and heaved into the water feeling the splashes of sick tainted bog water fragrance him. Three more deep gauges with two fingers and Mr Chang was back. The bright orange chilli sauce splattered the bowl as tears streamed from his eyes and his nostrils filled with peking duck. His right arm shuddered under his weight and he collapsed onto the bathroom floor sobbing.

  With his arm he wiped his mouth and slowly made his way back to his feet. He kept on sniffing feeling undigested lumps of chinese wedged between nostril and throat.

  On the TV screen Bond had just met the said Bond girl. There was no reason David couldn’t have a woman like that. It would take dedication but there were ways, there had to be. As Bond began to plan his escape so too did David begin to plan his escalation to popularity, or at least notoriety.

  He had said he would show his sardonic and sadistic ex-boss Gregor. This was the way. It would begin with the body. He dropped to the floor and began to at least attempt to do press-ups. This was his new beginning. This was his escape route.

  *

  “Just because someone says something is wrong doesn’t necessarily mean that it is”.

  Glass eyes looked over the figure that had announced that and thought the girl wearing the Converse and the tight black vest top was typically Chelsea. April drew in on the cigarette and looked at the gaunt faces sniffing constantly and rotating their jaws. She believed what she had said.

  The argument that had taken up most of the evening had finally begun to fade away thanks to her unmatched stubbornness. One girl had decided to tell April she was wrong.

  “Well I just adore it here”, this big haired bitch had said.

  “I mean what’s not to like. Where I live everyone knows each other and we always see family friends and do stuff in the same pubs. Its like, you cant even go to Waitrose without seeing someone. And the clubs.”

  April had laughed aloud and the rest of her army of tweeded warriors had spun to face this woman or girl of indeterminable age who had supplied all of the cocaine. April was an SW Londoner herself by culture and upbringing. That was before mummy’s big move down south to London. Whether this was for a ‘job offer’ as she claimed or Daddy’s best friend Archie no one ever knew, except everyone at the golf club.

  She was not against this way of life, she had loved it. What she didn’t like was the need to portray a class so openly and especially by those with no roots.

  “How do you do?” the conversation had started earlier that evening. This man-boy had decided that there was no possible way April could bear to be in a pub of such infamy alone so he best talk to her.

  April had let her piercing blue eyes take in the large frame, curled blonde hair and ruddy cheeks and thought it could be fun.

  She let the straw from her vodka slim rest on her bottom lip and she gingerly flicked it back into her mouth with her tongue. The man-boy, Rufus, she assessed after his friends had shouted from across the bar, was visibly if not intellectually stimulated.

  Perhaps he hoped his accent alone would suffice. “Well, what’s your name then, or are you going to make me guess it?”

  April decided not to let him blunder on as with his height and her low cut top, he was starting to stare at her tits.

  She returned, “April, Rufus right?”

  “Oh, have we met somewhere? Wait, let
me guess. Its either the Hunt Ball or Cartier. Wait, Courchevel. Damn Russians. I was so fucking smashed all the time though I cant remember much!”

  April was not dressed like him, she had said nothing but his name but he carried on insisting that he knew her. That wasn’t even possible with seven billion people in the world.

  “No we haven’t met, I heard your friend say it.”

  Blushing slightly and showing a rack of teeth the size of a thoroughbred he backtracked, “Right, right. Well, who you here with?”

  “You right now Rufus”, and another flick of the tongue for good measure.

  “Oh really!” Rufus flushed slightly and straightened out his trousers.

  “Yes Rufus, really.”

  “Well look, me and some mates. Were regulars actually, pretty well known. Having some drinks, come over. Benners cousin works here so drinks are half price.”

  April thought first about the pain of such inane conversation. Then she reminded herself that this was study, not a choice. And of course the three grams of cocaine in her pocket, a gift from an acquaintance and the fact that these sad fuckers would buy her as many Bollinger cocktails as she wanted. Why not, she had nothing better to do.

  Rufus laughed so openly April saw down his oesophagus. “And anyhow I had said to him he had to drink it. Fucking lame, he wouldn’t even down it”.

  April mock laughed, she now held court over four virile, rich, or supposedly rich, young men. They were currently telling her competing stories about who had been the drunkest and at the same time trying to get her to a level of drunkenness when she would allow one of them to share their unmade bed with a wet towel on. She had shared some of the cocaine with two of the upstanding chaps to see who could impress April by telling her how often they did drugs. Then the two girls joined. They had caused all the fracas. Immediate dislike was something April was somewhat used to, she knew she could be a bitch when she wanted to.

  “So you’re telling me you dislike London that much?”

  April said bluntly, “Yes”, and they all looked bemused. The most frustrating thing for April was she loved it, London that was. It was what it did to her though. She felt lost, useless and that she was in no way doing whatever she was supposed to be doing.

  “Amazing isn’t it”, Rufus stage whispered in her ear. “How someone as fit as you can be single”.

  April sighed, “Baffling!”

  “Well look, I don’t want to be forward…”

  “Yes you do”, April snapped.

  Cheeks blushed and Rufus for a moment began to comprehend in his eyes just what he was dealing with.

  “You do mean to be forward Rufus, of course you do. Poor me, abandoned, alone and fuckable at a bar and the brave shining knight Rufus will come along cock in hand and make all my sweet troubles go away”.

  “Err…” was all Rufus could muster.

  “Rufus, you are great to some I am sure but stop thinking every girl looks at your get-up and your manner and immediately gets wet and wants you to pleasure her intimately by you lying on top of her in your socks”.

  “Now look here!” Rufus coloured to pink blush rose from Provence. “I will not be spoken to like that. You wouldn’t be the first woman I had….”

  He never finished.

  Between wood splitting and a whip crack was the noise April’s hand made across the unshaven cheeks of Rufus. Hitting women April would not tolerate, no matter how interesting a study.

  “Oh my god”, one of the girls screamed.

  He hadn’t moved and all that changed on him was the red swell beginning to blinker on his cheek against the snow white pallor of cocaine induced skin.

  April grabbed a bag of the cocaine and her coat. She was about to say something pithy, something that would perhaps teach them a lesson but she decided against it. When the door slammed behind her the commotion reached fever pitch behind her as they tendered to their great warrior now defeated by something that didn’t even have a penis.

  April held the unsealed bag to her nose and inhaled deeply, the acrid bitter taste of the white powder not quelling her rage. She looked around at the only other people around at 6.00am in the morning. Tramps and runners, neither appealed.

  The halogen bulbs on the Ladbrokes betting shop were all but gone. The dawn broke over the back of Imperial Wharf and April took another hit. She noticed the only two letters that remained in tact on the Ladbrokes. ‘L.A’ beamed proudly over the shitty street and realisation dawned. The place where dreams came true, or went to die, either seemed more attractive. April was moving to Los Angeles, the City of Angels.

  Chapter 3

  It was early and obviously so. Dampness reigned supreme and the sun had been obliterated over night. London was the Monday commuter, desperate to hide under an infinite blanket. The early autumn, so full of promise and hopes for new beginnings, but by now routines and life goals had failed. Wet browning leaves turning to mulch and the smell of bitumen was everywhere. The blinking red of temporary traffic lights appeared compulsory. One solitary figure made war against bleakness.

  David ducked against the rain thumping off the peak of his grey hooded top and blinked his eyes under the fluorescent reception lights as the door opened.

  She was there again, all blonde hair, foundation and an incredibly small polo shirt for someone with such a bust.

  “Morning David”, she beamed through the lip-gloss staining her teeth.

  “Morning”, David said more gruffly that he would have liked as he looked again at her boobs.

  “Here again are we?”

  Despite wanting to say, ‘No in fact you are looking at a hologram’, David didn’t.

  “Yes, I am”.

  “Its your first session with Peter today isn’t it?” Denise beamed.

  Only utterly boring people were interesting at this time, “Yes”.

  “Well good luck”, she said whilst opening the gate to pain that electronically swung open.

  David stepped through putting aside the question about what ‘good luck’ meant. With towel over shoulder and the generic music beginning to blare he looked up at the air vent pumping a freezing breeze down on him. Up the stairs he trotted, his legs already aching from the run there this morning and the two the day before.

  Entering the room the machines all blinked ‘welcome’, each one designed and dedicated to causing him some new fangled pain. ‘Don’t, don’t you want me’, boomed out of mounted speakers and the whirr of other people insane enough to be doing what he was doing at this time of the day drilled into him.

  The light faded and David blinked upwards.

  Donned in a bright red polo showing his erect nipples in perfect outline was Peter.

  “You’re late”, he boomed, his perfect face, voice, hair, ass and legs all quivering under the sheer weight of his masculinity. He reached forward and got David’s hand in a vice like grip.

  “I….I’m…..”, David stammered.

  “I’m kidding bud! Good work getting here. I’m Peter, you’re David. Are you ready?”

  “Hi Peter.”

  “No, no its Pe-ter, I am Swedish, from ‘Sve-don’ as you Brits say. You ready?”

  “Ready for…?”

  “To kick some a-hole champ. Lets get that bod you want. Lets get those rolls firmed my man. Now are you ready?”

  David looked down, he seemed only ready for his next meal like some gigantic baby bird awaiting to fly the nest.

  Pe-ter looked at David hard, his frame growing impossibly bigger as he stepped closer. He put a fatherly hand on David’s shoulder and squeezed it. “David, I gotta know if you’re ready man. If not, maybe we shouldn’t be friends”. He pulled a sad face and stamped his foot whilst pretending to sob.

  Fucking hell. David pushed his glasses up onto his nose and took a deep breath.

  “I am ready,” he said.

  Pe-ter smashed his hand down onto David’s back. “Alright champ, lets get to it”.

  “Yeah, yeah lets do
it! Lets fucking do it, fucking now fuckers”, David shouted loudly.

  Pe-ter spun round, “Hey hey David, Jesus, keep it down man. This is a gym not a techno bar, plenty of people trying to work out you know?”

  “Sorry”, he said before being led off to the first machine.

  “Come on David, final push my friend. Final push. Push it!”

  Somewhere between unconsciousness and the first time he had alcohol poisoning David now felt. The session had begun innocently enough with stretching and a chat about goals, motivations and how far he was willing to go. Next were some arduous ‘light weights’, actually no heavier than bags of sugar. The fact they left David burning all over having rotated them in circles left him feeling less than the Adonis standing no more than a foot away urging him on with breath like cinnamon.

  David was then subjected to sit ups. He oinked as he did them, and as he curled he could feel the hot breath of Pe-ter upon him.

  “Yes David, you feel that? That’s called effort! That’s called making a difference”.

  Next was the running machine that was the worst yet. Surrounded by women with pert tits wearing luminous running vests he trundled. He wore his Cambridge University t-shirt that was now mottled grey down to his shorts with twenty years worth of nuggets, big-mac’s, whoppers, burritos and fries oozing out of him.

  He felt closer to death than those in euthanasia. Bitter sweat ran down his face and into his mouth.

  “One more level?” Pe-ter kept asking.

  Fuck no he wanted to say, fuck off and be gone you gigantic tanned mosquito. What was David doing here? This was no place for him, not someone like him. This was for the young and over-initiated. Twice he could have sworn he had seen people point, this was like the bloody playground all over again.

  And then he remember his ex boss. His life. His predicament. His promise. He had been fired unjustly and mocked all his life. He had no girlfriend and little chance of ever getting one. Unless.